Saturday, May 31, 2014

Developed and built by Nuytco Research, this exosuit is made from hard metal and allows divers to operate safely down to a depth of 1000 feet. The suit has four 1.6 horsepower propulsion thrusters, fiber optic gigabit ethernet, and a host of telemetry devices.

The "Exosuit atmospheric diving system" (ADS) will allow wearers to work in deep water without facing problems with decompression. While still in testing right now, diver Michael Lombardi will be taking it out for its first full exploration mission later this summer, at a location called Canyons, approximately 100 miles off the coast of Rhode Island.

NEW ORLEANS, May 31, 2014 — Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., excited the crowd at the Republican Leadership Conference when he addressed them this afternoon. He followed up his appearance with a victory in the event’s 2016 presidential straw poll, which was sponsored by Conservative Intel.

In the straw poll, 633 ballots were cast, which was attended by more than 1,500 people. The results were as follows:

People are more likely to believe that humans cause global warming if they are told that 97 percent of publishing climate scientists agree that it does, a new study has found.

Well, yes. If I was told that, say, 97 percent of dentists agree that chewing Trident is better for your teeth than chewing bubble gum, that would make perfect sense. Trouble is, the idea that “97 percent of publishing climate scientists agree” human activity has created an out-of-control global warming crisis is a myth.

One of the most commonly cited studies of the “97 percent” was conducted by a University of Illinois professor and a graduate student who asked the following questions to 10,257 Earth scientists working for universities and government research agencies:

QOTD: "With his lame duck status and this being his “year of action,” we should be terribly wary of what institutionalized edicts he’s putting in place — and especially, those we haven’t really heard much about. Because fundamental transformation has been given its legal go ahead through ObamaCare, and the offshoots of that re-imagining of the relationship between the people and the government, with the citizens as subjects and the government the sovereign, will be used in any number of ways to constrain liberty and choice, all in the name of the greater good." --Jeff Goldstein

Friday, May 30, 2014

101 years ago, the progressive movement in America -- an offshoot of the European socialists -- passed the 16th Amendment, which installed the federal income tax. Like all of the progressives' fables, it was predicated on lies.

It has become an unconstrained leviathan that inserts itself into every aspect of Americans' lives and ruins everything it touches. From Fannie Mae to the VA, from the "Great Society" to public sector unions, from the student loan business to Obamacare, it has a track record of failure and a legacy of misery.

And no matter its failures, it never downsizes. It never turns introspective, examines it failures and course-corrects. The elites who become lifetime politicians take an oath to uphold the Constitution and then refute it. Once in office, they revile its limits and scoff at its intent.

We Americans were blessed with the gift of the finest form of government ever seen in human history. And the progressives are trying to throw it all away, following the same ill-defined game-plan of centralized, authoritarian government with top-down decision-making that hasn't worked in all of human history, can't work, and will never work.

Using publicly accessible street maps, the folks at GooBing Detroit compared various Motor City properties over a period of time. Each of the following photo sequences were taken in the 2009 to 2011 time-frame.

"It would be impossible to kill enough of my enemies before being dispatched by those damnable cops."

Elliot Rodgers, the UCSB murderer who killed six people, seemed to take a chapter out of the NRA playbook, echoing Wayne LaPierre’s now famous words – “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”

“Another option was Deltopia, a day in which many young people pour in from all over the state to have a spring break party on Del Playa Street. I figured this would be the perfect day to attack Isla Vista, but after watching Youtube videos of previous Deltopia parties, I saw that there were way too many cops walking around on such an event. It would be impossible to kill enough of my enemies before being dispatched by those damnable cops.”

In other words, the more good guys on the ground, the more likely mass killings can be reduced. So says the killer.

QOTD: "I go to Europe a lot for various speeches. I always get asked how come Obama’s not paying attention to us? I think he is. The problem is the Europeans have to change. This is not -- he can't rely only on America with a different policy. The Europeans have to understand now they're equal partners and more is expected of them. I think that's exactly what the president -- the kind of foreign policy the president wants." --Howard "YEEEHHAHHAHAWWWW" Dean

...not a word has been heard of late about a truly transformative Obama executive action, his rule on “affirmatively furthering fair housing” (AFFH). That rule will push Americans into living how and where the federal government wants. It promises to gut the ability of suburbs to set their own zoning codes. It will press future population growth into tiny, densely-packed high-rise zones around public transportation, urbanizing suburbs and Manhattanizing cities...

You won’t see a more ambitious Obama administration initiative than this. Yet Obama never discusses AFFH. Although a preliminary version of the rule was released in July of 2013, the president didn’t mention it in his State of the Union address. The controversial rule was the subject of a Weekly Standardcover, yet as far as I can tell neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post has ever done a story on AFFH...

[There isn't] an issue more worthy of public debate and discussion in advance of the 2014 midterm election than the AFFH rule and the Obama administration’s “regionalist” housing policies. You can see dry runs for what Obama hopes to do with his new housing rule in recent planning initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area and the TwinCities...

How can conservatives help draw the public's attention to these radical and unconstitutional dictates?

With her memoir, Hard Choices set to be released in the coming weeks, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her publishing company have provided an excerpt in which she claims President Obama’s actions during the Bin Laden raid were “as crisp and courageous a display of leadership” that she had ever seen.

Here are 7 reasons that Obama’s leadership during the raid was neither crisp or courageous.

1) Obama Canceled the Mission to Kill Bin Laden Three Times

Clinton writes about one of the strongest examples of decision-making under pressure:

“Perhaps the most famous example from my four years as Secretary of State was President Obama’s order to send a team of Navy SEALs into a moonless Pakistani night to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. The President’s top advisors were divided. The intelligence was compelling, but far from definitive. The risks of failure were daunting.”

The Clinton memoir tries to paint a picture of decisiveness despite “risks of failure” and “far from definitive” intelligence. President Obama made the call despite the numerous doubts. That isn’t necessarily the case, however.

According to a book released in August of 2012, titled Leading from Behind: The Reluctant President and the Advisors Who Decide for Him, a source “with Joint Special Operations Command who had direct knowledge of the operation and its planning,” claims that Obama squashed the kill order on bin Laden in January, February, and March of 2011. Bin Laden was successfully taken down in early May.

New York Magazine captured the reactions of seven diverse media outlets to President Obama's foreign policy speech at West Point earlier this week. The highlights included "[he] demolish[ed] straw men" (Slate), "highly partisan and defensive in tone", "weak, indecisive and unconvincing" (Bloomberg), "a defensive, lawyerly answer to critics" (CNN), and "ludicrous" (The New York Times, no less).

As former VP Dick Cheney summed it up: "We've got a problem with weakness, and it's centered right in the White House. It's as though he wasn't even around when 9/11 happened."

QOTD: "Obama chafes at ... even-handed analyses. He dismisses them as "false equivalence" because the president won't be happy until every news story casts him as the hero and Republicans as the villains.

In politics and in everyday life, rarely are both sides equally wrong, which is why journalists shouldn't draw false equivalence. [WaPo liberal writer Dan] Balz is an example of how to measure blame fairly, not necessarily equally.

Rarer still is one side 100 percent right, which is why Obama is guilty of false purity. Obama's intellectual dishonesty has prevented him from learning on the job, which is what's required of great presidents—the kind who overcome obstacles that others whine about." --Ron Fournier, National Journal

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Benghazi: The administration deploys an assault ship with 1,000 Marines to Libya after ordering Americans to leave as the country implodes. Where was this ship on Sept. 11, 2012? Where was the president?

The families of the Benghazi dead must be cursing and scratching their heads at the sight of the amphibious assault ship Bataan, with about 1,000 Marines aboard, sailing into the Mediterranean Sea to assist in evacuating Americans if the current round of deadly fighting in Libya worsens.

Suddenly the administration is paying attention to the warning signs of a crisis of its own making and issuing concerns about security that were absent when four Americans died begging for help from an indifferent administration and a president who was resting prior to yet another fundraising trip.

Based on escalating security concerns, the U.S. State Department recommended Tuesday that Americans in Libya "depart immediately." In addition to the Bataan and its helicopters, America also has 250 available Marines, seven Osprey combat aircraft and three refueling planes in Sigonella, Italy, AFP reported.

Three years after President Obama supported the move to topple and kill longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has descended into armed chaos, and there isn't even a YouTube video to blame this time.

There has been a lot of talk from the Obama administration about having more “humane” immigration policies — but the sad fact is that on President Obama’s watch, one of the most inhumane realities of illegal immigration has skyrocketed. Children are crossing the border – and they’re doing it without their parents.

The number of minor children crossing or attempting to cross the U.S. southern border unaccompanied by a parent or other adult relative has exploded from 6,560 in 2011 to an estimated 60,000 for fiscal year 2014. Border patrol agents in South Texas reported over 1,000 such children were apprehended by officials earlier this month, including a 3-year-old boy from Honduras.

What explains the dramatic increase?

As a government official from Ecuador told The New York Times, one of the main reasons is a belief held by many in Central America and Mexico that some sort of immigration reform will be passed that allows anyone who can get into the United States illegally to be able to stay.

In other words, the prospect of amnesty is encouraging more illegal immigration – and in this case, the human trafficking of children. Often raised by their grandparents or other relatives because their parents have already come to the U.S. illegally, these children are traveling alone or with human smugglers, called coyotes, who are paid to get them across the border.

And what happens once they’re here? According to the Department of Health and Human Services, by law, the U.S. government must assume custody of “unaccompanied alien children” apprehended by law enforcement who file claims to remain in the United States. The government then contracts with state-licensed facilities to care for the children until it can place them with sponsors.

According to a judge in Texas who has reviewed numerous such cases, the U.S. government is guilty of encouraging this illegal behavior.

For Barack Obama speeches are not just motivational instruments or representations of a desired state of affairs, but feats of political transubstantiation, where, if he utters them, words become reality.

It is a behavior not dissimilar to Adolf Hitler maneuvering imaginary German divisions from his Berlin bunker while Russian troops rampage throughout the city above him.

Delusional is the only term that I can muster to describe the chasm that exists between the words Obama uses and the differing reality into which they are dispensed.

In politics and foreign policy, words have power if they are truthful and followed by corresponding actions. When they lack authenticity, however, words degenerate into the coarse tools of a con artist, receptive only to the cynical or the equally delusional.

It is as if Obama is following the George Burns axiom, the key to success is sincerity, if you can fake that, then you've got it made.

Case in point was his 2014 commencement speech at West Point, which was little more than a collection of false assumptions and imaginary accomplishments.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

The world’s only hotel to occupy a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe–designed building, the new Langham, Chicago (312.923.9988, www.langhamhotels.com), is a worthy tribute to the great Bauhaus architect. Debuted in September in an imposing glass tower along the Chicago River, the hotel abounds with appropriate touches, including Mies-inspired furnishings designed by the luminary’s grandson, Dirk Lohan of the Chicago-based firm Lohan Anderson. The 316-room property—which occupies the first 13 floors of the 52-story tower—breaks with form at times, as in the plush-carpeted guest rooms and suites and the Eastern-inspired Chuan Spa. The David Rockwell–designed Travalle restaurant serves as the hotel’s most authentic interpretation of Bauhaus, with glass walls, clean lines, and minimalist wood-and-metal furnishings. ($295–$6,000)

I'm guessing the suite pictured above is a tad closer to $6,000 a night as opposed to $295.

Guns: The Santa Barbara shooter had legally purchased and registered firearms, and passed prior questioning by the police who saw no danger to himself or others. More gun laws won't stop the next such shooter, either.

It is eerie how the mental health of the shooter consistently seems to emerge as a key factor in mass shootings such as the rampage by Elliot Rodger, who killed six and wounded 13 on Friday. The shooter had been in therapy since age 8 and police had been warned by his parents to check him out.

Yet few liberals cry for tougher mental health laws compared with demands for tougher gun control. It would surprise these liberals that "right-wing bitter clingers" and even the NRA agree that some people shouldn't have access to guns — people such as Elliot Rodger.

The question is how to realistically and constitutionally do it. Instead of answering that question, we hear cries for "tougher" laws. But tougher than what?

Last December the Los Angeles Times noted in a report that California had the strictest gun control laws in the country and had received an A- grade in a state-by-state analysis by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

TONE DEAF: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has issued a series of high-profile statements that appear to defend the VA hospital system.

As accusations flood the Department of Veterans Affairs over systemic, severe wrongdoing at VA medical centers across the country, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has made a series of puzzling public statements that appear to defend the government hospital bureaucracy.

The string of statements began on May 15, when Sanders appeared on CNN for an interview with Chris Cuomo.

After urging media to remain neutral over claims that 40 U.S. veterans died at the Phoenix VA while waiting to receive care, Sanders said, “The allegation is not that the delay in care caused that, only that that is what is now being investigated.”

“Did the delay in care of these people on the secret waiting list actually cause these deaths? We don’t know,” Sanders said.

Elsewhere, Sanders appeared to gloat over the Veterans Affairs health care system, saying “the VA holds up as good or better than private hospitals. By and large, veterans throughout America believe that they’re getting pretty good health care.”

QOTD: "If we were living in normal times, the following scandals and failures — without going into foreign policy — would have ruined a presidency to the point of reducing it to Nixon, Bush, or Truman poll ratings.

Think of the following: the Fast and Furious scandal, the VA mess, the tapping of the communications of the Associated Press reporters, the NSA monitoring, Benghazi in all of its manifestations, the serial lies about Obamacare, the failed stimuli, the chronic zero interest/print money policies, the serial high unemployment, the borrowing of $7 trillion to no stimulatory effect, the spiraling national debt, the customary violations of the Hatch Act by Obama cabinet officials, the alter ego/fake identity of EPA head Lisa Jackson, the sudden departure of Hilda Solis after receiving union freebies, the mendacity of Kathleen Sebelius, the strange atmospherics surrounding the Petraeus resignation, the customary presidential neglect of enforcing the laws from immigration statutes to his own health care rules, the presidential divisiveness (“punish our enemies,” “you didn’t build that,” Trayvon as the son that Obama never had, etc.), and on and on.

So why is there not much public reaction or media investigatory outrage?" --Victor Davis Hanson

Monday, May 26, 2014

The insanity of a federal policy that refuses to secure America's border with a failed narco-terror state is nowhere better illustrated than today in El Paso.

Two frightening incidents of vandalism in El Paso near the Mexican border in Texas have been interpreted as warnings from drug cartels...

In both instances, a mannequin wearing a suit and tie was tied to a billboard with a noose and messages were scrawled over the placards.

Local station KHOU reports that one of the signs reads 'Plata o Plombo' which translates to 'silver or lead', a threat used commonly against police officers effectively warning that if they do not accept the cartel's bribes then they will be shot.

...This symbol has historically been used by Mexican drug cartels to threaten or intimidate Mexican citizens, business owners and government officials; however, we have never experienced this in El Paso,' local police said in a press release about the vandalism...

...The fear now for many is that the 'warnings' shows that the drug cartels- which have not been identified by name- are willing to bring the violence from Mexican border towns into Texas.

This Memorial Day, Barack Obama and members of Congress will honor our veterans by wearing ribbons and laying wreaths, but what they should really do is apologize to the entire nation for treating them like human trash for the past five years. You see, the truth is that this VA scandal is nothing new. The problems at the VA hospitals have been documented over and over again for years. When Barack Obama was a U.S. senator, he served on the Veterans Affairs Committee. So as he entered the White House, he was supposed to be an expert in this area. And back in 2008, he pledged to "make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible". But of course that never happened. And now Obama is claiming that he only learned of the "secret waiting lists" at VA hospitals by "watching television", and his staff says that he is "madder than hell" about it. So now that he has been publicly shamed, will Obama actually do something about it? Because our military veterans deserve far better care than what they have been getting.

Most Americans don't realize this, but members of al-Qaeda detained at Guantanamo Bay actually receive far better medical treatment than our military veterans do. Just consider what former Pentagon spokesperson J.D. Gordon had to say about the matter...

Masterminds like Lupica can't be bothered to ruminate on the fact that the psycopath's own parents couldn't keep their kid on his meds nor alert the authorities to their real fears. No, Lupica wants to punish all of society for the actions of a lunatic.

So Lupica goes right to the totalitarian's playbook: get rid of all guns in order to stop psychopaths from killing. Yes, that's right, Mikey, ignore the guy plowing into people with his car, ignore his use of knives to kill, and instead go right for the jugular of the Consitution.

QOTD: "Washington, D.C. rapper Wale publicly bashed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Friday for pressuring the Redskins to change their name, saying the senator is only attempting to “make a bigger name” for himself by exploiting race issues.

The rapper also reminded his 3.6 million Twitter followers that Reid once told reporters that President Barack Obama was an effective politician because he’s a “light-skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

“Same dude tht was talkin down on Obama bein a ‘light skinned’ with ‘negro dialect’ all the sudden is a crusader for what’s right in race,” Wale tweeted.

The rapper called Reid “sketchy,” adding that he likely doesn’t know “anything about [the] Washington team and I doubt he cares he just using a sensitive time to garner attention.”" --Jason Howerton